He discovered woodworking while learning to make a guitar to pursue his first passion, music. Then he spent a decade renovating spaces in New York City. Driven to master more skills, he attended the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. Many of Hammer's furniture pieces, such as his Camden and Katahdin beds, are named for Maine landmarks. Others have Italian town names that honor favorite vacation travels.

His expertise includes high-end cabinetry and millwork, both residential jobs and custom installations in dental and medical offices. Some New York City clients with elegant reception rooms but limited space pose challenges different from designing freestanding furniture. In his shop Hammer shows off images of a book-matched cabinet with radius-curved doors, veneered in figured cherry, made for one such client. From 1995 to 2008 Hammer, 42, was based in Brooklyn, but he spent most of his high-school years in Bloomfield, when his father, the artist Alfred Hammer, was dean of the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford.

On occasion Hammer has worked on exotic commissions with other artisans, including jewelers and stained-glass artists. One diminutive piece for Manhattan jeweler Julius Cohen was a hexagonal carousel base of paduk wood, sitting within a 12-facet glass "tent." The carousel horses, poles and garland decorations were cast in gold and inlaid with precious stones. The finished piece, with concealed music box, measured just 8 inches tall. It was one of his most challenging projects, Hammer says without hesitation.

Drawing In The Service Of Design

Despite what he claims, Hammer doesn't put all his thought into construction. Rather, it's the design process that gets his juices flowing.

"I could draw well [as a child], but it was more like a tool. Design work pulled in the drawing." His mother Jeanne, who holds a degree in industrial design, taught young Stephen three-point perspective at her studio. "That was my playground. She knew that was the best way to bring me around. I credit her even more than my dad. She taught me not to take something casually."

Today Hammer produces his detailed renderings using design software he mastered on his own. Computer images replace the small models and cardboard-hot glue mockups of yore, freeing him to try multiple design permutations rapidly. Furniture is nothing if not sculptural; rotating a table 360 degrees on the monitor screen lets Hammer assess its three-dimensionality in seconds.

"Wood has an incredible strength-to-weight ratio. A Hans Wegner chair looks delicate [but isn't]." (Wegner, an illustrious name in Danish modern design, is known for spare, curved chairs such as the "Elbow" and the "Wishbone.") Hammer finds joy and challenge exploiting wood's potential. Certain pieces, such as his aerodynamic Trestle Table, possess a strength that belie their slender profiles and apparent fragility.

Tage Frid influenced Hammer, too. Frid, another star in the studio-furniture firmament, immigrated to America from Denmark in 1948 and taught at schools including Rochester Institute of Technology and RISD until his death in 2004.

Hammer says Frid was "very practical in his approach, not precious," and Frid emphasized there are "so many solutions" to a woodworking challenge, but one is better than the others. Frid worked as an editor of Taunton Press' Fine Woodworking magazine for over a quarter-century. In 2002 that publication featured Hammer building a bow-front cabinet. Articles on joinery techniques and about a dining table he's crafting now are upcoming.

Learning From A Music Legend

Hammer brings years of serious guitar-playing to his work. He hasn't played much lately, given the demands of business and his family: wife Diana Reeve, an art historian, and daughters age 8 and 5.

Time was, he practiced up to eight hours a day. For seven years in his 20s, as a student of jazz guitarist Sal Salvador, he honed both his mastery of jazz and his manual dexterity. Salvador, who played with Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn, told his student, "All the work happens when you're away from the instrument," and it has proven just as true for Hammer's design process.

Design problems are solved and resolved out of the shop, Hammer says. "[I] see a finished piece in [my] mind when [I] drive. I can see a balance. A light goes off."

Urban Forest Furniture's line prices range from around $800 to $2,500 for end tables; $4,000 to $12,000 for dining tables; $7,000 to $15,000 for dressers. Custom pieces are priced individually. Urban Forest Furniture is at 321 Ellis St., New Britain, 860-249-9994. By appointment or urbanforestfurniture.com.